BGSU president visits Archbold Rotary

Dr. Rodney Rogers, right, president of Bowling Green State University, and Marc Fruth, who arranged the program.

Submitted photo

Dr. Rodney Rogers, Bowling Green State University’s 12th president and the first BG alum to lead the university, touted the school’s academic leadership and its graduates’ 97 percent success rate at gaining employment, starting a business or continuing their education within six months of completing a degree program at Friday’s Archbold Rotary meeting.

He said that enrollment will be just over 20,000 students when classes start for the fall term — making Bowling Green the fastest growing public university in Ohio. As a public university, Dr. Rogers said Bowling Green owes the state’s taxpayers and its students a great deal.

He explained that the university strives to lead and succeed in four key areas. First, maintain and create relevant, meaningful academic programs that meet the needs of today’s economy and lead to jobs for its graduates. While adding new programs (such as a computer software engineering program), he explained that it’s just as important to be willing to drop programs that are no longer relevant or maintain sufficient student enrollment.

He explained that graduate programs need to focus faculty and student effort on research that will help inform the public debate. For example, he noted BG’s efforts to identify the causes and possible solutions of Lake Erie’s water quality problems.

A third area of focus is to work as efficiently as possible to provide a high quality, affordable college education. He noted that Business Insider had recently rated BGSU as the most affordable, top quality university in Ohio. And, finally, he said it’s important to create both public and private partnerships to meet public needs and better serve BG students. He cited two examples: the creation of a forensic science center and degree program in cooperation with the Ohio attorney general’s office and a partnership with North Star Aviation that has led to BGSU having 22 planes and 400 students involved in a program to train pilots that will hopefully help meet a looming shortage of commercial aviation pilots.

The program was arranged by Bowling Green alum Marc Fruth.

Dr. Rodney Rogers, right, president of Bowling Green State University, and Marc Fruth, who arranged the program.

https://www.fcnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2018/08/web1_program-aug-17_ne2018821203058616.jpgDr. Rodney Rogers, right, president of Bowling Green State University, and Marc Fruth, who arranged the program. Submitted photo